23. Chapter 23
twenty-three
Hue
I love you.
It’s been playing in my head for days.
Sor’en loves me.
And he’s an ass.
We’re at an impasse, a crossroads where neither of us can seem to choose a destination. I glance up at him as he walks me deeper into the center, only to find his eyes already on me, as they always are.
It turns out that my asshole, jerk, creepy, good cook, sexy as all alien hell mate is also a bit of a stalker. Everywhere that I go, he is.
Endlessly.
Watching, listening, and at night he uses his oil to make me sleepy, sneaks between my legs and makes me come until stars dance behind my eyes and I’m lost to the world.
But he hasn’t laid with me, not in the genuine sense.
I go to sleep angry, sated, blissed out in his arms while we both refuse to speak, and I wake to a cold bed.
I turn my sheepish peeking into a stern glare before jerking my attention away and doing my best to walk ahead of him, but Xyrelith’s legs are fucking long.
By the time we reach Jin’rayal’s strange tent-like structure in the city center, sweat is beading at my hairline, and Sor’en is unbothered in perfect stride with me despite the fact that I’m nearly jogging now to try to get ahead of him.
See?
He's an ass.
He knows what I’m trying to do.
He likes reminding me how impossible it is to get away from him.
Stinking, twisted, goopy, mean, poop ass of a male.
He smirks.
I debate biting him again, pulling his silky hair that’s nicer than mine, and jabbing at his pretty eyeballs.
I’d only try it because I know he’d stop me quickly and remain relatively unharmed as we’ve both found out over the past few solars.
It’s fruit for thought, so I stick a pin in the idea as we enter Jin’rayal’s house slash workshop.
Er- former workshop where he still works but claims he’s retired.
I don’t know, it's weird. I think at a certain age, Xyreliths are supposed to dedicate themselves to more spooky things like sitting in the fields and thinking about death. Introspection about death. Mediating about dying. You know, typical Xyreliths stuff. Jin’rayal, aside from Sor’en, seems like one of the most uninclined to take any of it too seriously. As much as I love—
My steps falter for a moment, making Sor’en’s hand snap out to steady me.
I shake him off.
Yeah, I guess I do love them too.
As much as I love my new friends here, they are a bit of a serious, stuffy crowd. Very balanced which is great for them, slightly boring for me. Although watching them do their odd hand-swirling thing every time I speak is pretty funny, and they seem to think so too.
“A balanced morning, star child,” Jin’rayal says in greeting as we enter the open, shimmering flaps of his tent, booth, shop, house thing. “What brings you by?”
“Aside from you telling me to, your craft leaves a lot to be desired, old man. I’m still itchy.”
That gets his attention, his milky eyes drifting to my stoic guardian before dipping into a frown. “Strange.”
I plop down, scratching at my stomach. The itching has been… a lot, to be honest. It wasn’t so bad at first; I figured I spent too much time lying in the grass chatting with Melion, so I started bringing blankets out. Sor’en and Jin agreed that was likely the issue.
But then it got worse.
And even worse after that.
The skin on my stomach is red and irritated, spreading down toward my inner thighs.
Sor’en tries his best to manage at home, using the petals in all sorts of different creams, but so far, nothing has worked.
Even the last tincture, this one made by the former master alchemist himself, hadn’t done much but take the edge off.
Jin wastes no time lifting the hem of my dress so he can inspect the skin, making a savage snarl find us from my mate across the tent.
“Go make yourself useful elsewhere, botanist,” Jin offers, not sparing Sor’en a glance.
The same can’t be said for me.
He lingers, clearly torn, hesitating before clenching his jaw and offering me a curt nod before he blips out.
My chest lets out an ugly little pang.
Jin peeks up at me. “You are each other’s balance, star child. It will come back.”
I frown at him until he goes back to inspecting the unmarred skin.
No bumps or red dots, nothing normally found when humans get itchy, just the angry traces of my scratching I sneak in when not being guarded by Sor’en.
When the older male isn’t staring into my soul, I finally speak up. “It’s your fault, you know.”
He huffs out a laugh at that. “Do not be insulting to my intelligence or your own.”
I smile, trying my best to hide it before I get caught. “Do you think I’m getting sick?”
His head turns to the side, as if he’s listening to something. Something only he can hear. “No, not in a sense.”
I wait to see if he’s going to elaborate.
He isn’t.
“Gee, I’m glad you’re so cryptic. Context regarding your assessment of my health would be quite anxiety-inducing.”
He leans up, groaning as he does.
Jin’rayal has been moving slower lately, but it doesn’t stop him from righting my dress and helping me gently to my feet. Despite him clearly needing more help than I, the last time I tried, he swatted at my hand like a child.
“I’d like to run a test, an old goddess's tale if you’d humor me.”
“Can I help you this time?”
He offers me a soft smile that looks strange on his grumpy face. “Of course.”
Sor’en
I inspect a cutting of Lyr’lumara, but I’m only half-seeing the flower in my palm or hearing the Balla’mar as he drones about the orders from other domes.
Sure, they have their fields and botanists as well, but none are as large as ours.
Sometimes their needs aren’t met by their output, and we help them fill the gap.
I should be planning which fields feel ready to cull, which flowers are ready to impart to the veil, instead, I’m straining at my connection to Melion as he stands guard outside Jin’rayal’s dwelling.
My bones ache for my mate.
Her touch only soothing my darkening thoughts as she lies sleepy and sated in my arms. I have not slept for several nights. An anxiety, a realization budding as I hold her, carrying her from room to room, watching the sky.
They are going to come for me.
For my people.
Melion’s sadness soothes over my nerves, pulling my thoughts even deeper away from the male still talking in my ear.
His purpose is to guide and protect me, to ease me toward the veil as I tend my fields, to be my eyes and my ears when my mind is far from my physical form. But his purpose is also her.
To adore, protect, and guide my mate as well.
For a Vena’lel not to be bonded with their companion's mate, it is like him fulfilling his soul's purpose with both arms severed, bound, and blinded.
He is but another tether for our souls to meld.
Another piece of an uncertain, unbalanced puzzle.
He yearns for her greatly.
In that we are the same.
General Adder would be a fool, a fool with a death wish to come here. To threaten her.
But he is a prideful male.
And he saw her.
He knows now why his compliant, sentient weapon has betrayed him.
The thing that put him in power, the power that now threatens us all. His point and shoot blaster, who keeps his hands clean under the lackluster eye of the Alliance he claims to serve.
Adder serves no male nor female. No deity nor quadrant.
He serves himself.
And I am forever condemned to Qavara for being a part of that.
Condemned to fail my mate in helping her lay her mother to rest. It had struck me with such sadness as I watched through Melion as she cried, her long hair tangled in the grass.
I suppose the Nysharil adopted tiny human Hue as a youngling, although she had not spoken on the matter long before Jin’rayal interrupted.
I wondered if he had assumed I had been watching, had thought to spare my pretty, innocent, unknowing mate from revealing things she meant to keep within her.
I will admit it was a sly, unbalanced thing to do, but I am what I am.
My mate has changed me much, but the core of me is the same.
Among the most shocking changes is that I no longer wish to undo, no longer wish I had ignored Clayan on our many hidden trips to Vortara during the Balla’mar’s meetings.
Every moment, no matter how awful, brought me to her.
To my mate and her soft golden-green eyes.
Her red hair that bounces with tight spirals, and her warm skin that tastes like sap on my tongue.
I can only hope she forgives me when this is all said and done.
I can only pray to the goddesses that I have a few more passes to hold her before I am forced to atone for the darkness I have bled into the world.
That the moment she sees my shame for what it is, sees her mate for who he is, she might not look upon me with the disgust I deserve.
How the anticipation of it makes her soft, peeking eyes nearly unbearable.
My worry for her health is abated as Melion has shown or felt no concern; the insufferable elderly male is putting up with my Vena’lel’s presence only because it means I am not there.
Melion being there is no different from me.
We are one and the same.
What he hears, I hear.
What Melion sees, I see.
“Botanist?”
My eyes snap back to the Balla’mar. “I shall check the fields tonight and let you know.” I offer him the flower. “This shows promise toward an offering. It would suit your purpose well.”
A rough glimmer in the distance shakes the dome, dragging his attention away from me as he takes the flower. “Yes...”
“Go with balance,” I offer halfheartedly.
“Go with balance, botanist.”
He’s only a few paces from me, far too important to move spatially like the rest of us, when he turns back.
I swallow down my suffering sigh. “Some way I can be of service to you, Balla’mar?”
He frowns. “Jin’rayal has been prepared to move with the veil for ages, but now his passing has slowed. He holds on for your human. Why do you suppose that is?”
My pulse jumps in my neck, but the years have hardened me in a way they have not touched my people. I give nothing away, keeping my face neutral. “Perhaps he simply wishes to enjoy her company a moment longer.”
“Do you suspect he means to invite her into ya’shmal?”
My jaw ticks because I quite suspect the male already has.
Because inviting one into ya’shmal is declaring another’s soul as your responsibility in the veil.
Instead of passing into the goddess's embrace, he will linger with her for as many years as her soul remains with her form. The male who, even by my standards, is unbalanced, without ever showing a care for another in all of his long life, has chosen to guard my mate in his afterlife. A growl gathers deep in my chest, making the Balla’mar’s eyes widen, his deep, flowing robes swathing and pooling in his insufferable self-importance.
Declaring another your soul's guard is a deeply private affair, deeply personal.
An act of selfless love, so pure it is said to mirror the vow Pheor'aya offered to her sister. “Go with balance, Balla’mar,” I offer, simply, a warning edging my voice.
He swallows hard, clearing his death shimmer above his head. “And balance with you.”
Toxin buds fresh and deadly on my palms.
So I go to the singular being on this plane of existence that can ease my distress.